Samuel Hammersmark
Samuel Tellefson Hammersmark (February 13, 1872 – 1957) was an American book publisher,
Biography
Early years
Samuel T. Hammersmark was born February 13, 1872, in Kristiansand, Norway. His father was a carpenter who brought the family to America the same year that Samuel was born.[1] The family settled in Chicago, Illinois, at time the second-largest city in the United States. It was there that Samuel Hammersmark attended public school.[1]
At the age of 13 Hammermark went to work as a clerk in a Chicago book store.[1] The furore over the 1886 bombing at Chicago's Haymarket Square and the retaliatory executions of several leading members of the Chicago radical movement the following year was an early influence upon the boy and he became associated with the anarchist movement at an early age.[2]
The young Hammersmark's anarchism seems to have been individualistic and contemplative. Seeing no philosophical contradiction of principles, in 1889 Hammersmark quit work in order to begin study for the Christian ministry at Chesboro Seminary.[1] He remained there until 1893.[1] Just prior to his ordination, Hammersmark had a fundamental change of heart, declared himself an atheist, and began to search for existential meaning in the secular world.[3]
The year 1893 was one of economic crisis, followed in 1894 by a
Hammersmark next began 2+1⁄2 years of study of law.
Hammersmark's interest in the radical labor movement moved him into a participatory role in 1905 when he attended in Chicago the founding convention of a new revolutionary
Towards the end of the first decade of the 20th Century Hammersmark moved to
Union activity
In the summer of 1912,
Foster and Fox's organization, called the
Ultimately, however, the activities of Foster and Fox drew Hammersmark back to Chicago to participate in Syndicalist League activity there.[12]
In 1917 Hammersmark joined the Retail Clerks' International Protective Society, for which he worked as a general organizer until 1919.[1] In 1919 he was also elected President of Chicago's Department Store Workers' Joint Council.[1]
Hammersmark was called into duty by William Z. Foster in the summer of 1919, during the
After the defeat of the 1919 Steel Strike, Hammersmark became involved in the burgeoning movement to establish a Labor Party in America. In 1920 Hammersmark was elected as Secretary-Treasurer of the Cook County Labor Party, one of the organizational forerunners of the Labor Party of the United States.[14] He remained at that post until submitting his resignation in May 1921.[14] Despite leaving the post as chief functionary of the Chicago Labor Party organization, Hammersmark remained close to the national movement to establish a Farmer-Labor Party, appearing on the primary election ballot of the Cook County FLP in 1922.[14]
Hammersmith was elected to the Executive Board of the Chicago Federation of Labor in 1921.[1]
Communist period
In December 1921 Hammersmark joined the newly established Workers Party of America, a "legal" Communist political party launched by the underground
Hammersmark was also active in the Communist Party's trade union affiliate, the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), an organization headed by his longtime associate William Z. Foster.[16] Although funded by the Communist International through the American Communist Party, the TUEL was essentially a parallel organization in its earliest phase, with the organization directed by a small circle in 1923 consisting of Foster, the man who brought him into the Communist orbit, Earl Browder, and key Chicago organizer Jack Johnstone — occasionally joined in their sessions by Hammersmark.[17]
Hammersmark ran for political office as a candidate of the Workers Party in 1924, standing for
Hammersmark headed the Communist Party of Illinois' state ticket in November 1936 as the CPUSA's candidate for Governor.[18]
Later years, death, and legacy
In his later years, Hammersmark worked as the manager of the Modern Bookstore, the Communist Party's book shop in Chicago.[12]
Samuel T. Hammersmark died in 1957. His body was buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.
While no comprehensive collection of Hammersmark's papers was preserved, a portion of his correspondence resides in the Jack and Sue Kling papers at the Chicago History Museum.[19]
Footnotes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Solon DeLeon with Irma C. Hayssen and Grace Poole (eds.), The American Labor Who's Who. New York: Hanford Press, 1925; pg. 95.
- ^ James R. Barrett, William Z. Foster and the Tragedy of American Radicalism. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999; pg. 62.
- ^ a b Randi Storch, Red Chicago: American Communism at Its Grassroots, 1928-35. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2007; pg. 14.
- ^ a b c d Storch, Red Chicago, pg. 15.
- ^ a b Barrett, William Z. Foster and the Tragedy of American Radicalism, pg. 113.
- ^ "Why?". pp. 2 v. in 1.
- ^ a b Edward P Johannningsmeier, Forging American Communism: The Life of William Z. Foster. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994; pg. 69.
- ^ Johannningsmeier, Forging American Communism, pp. 69-70.
- ^ Johannningsmeier, Forging American Communism, pg. 70.
- ^ Ernesto A. Longa, Anarchist Periodicals in English Published in the United States (1833-1955). Archived 2014-02-25 at the Wayback Machine Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010; pg. 269.
- ^ Harvey O'Connor, Revolution in Seattle. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964; pg. 236.
- ^ a b Johannningsmeier, Forging American Communism, pg. 71.
- ^ Johannningsmeier, Forging American Communism, pg. 134.
- ^ a b c Johannningsmeier, Forging American Communism, pg. 156.
- ^ Sam Hammersmark interview by Oakley C. Johnson, 1940. Ruthenberg Papers, Ohio Historical Society, box 9, folder 3, microfilm reel 5. DeLeon's American Labor Who's Who has the date as 1923.
- ^ Johannningsmeier, Forging American Communism, pg. 194.
- ^ Johannningsmeier, Forging American Communism, pg. 221.
- ^ Communist Party of Illinois, Platform of the Communist Party, State of Illinois, for the Elections November, 1936. Chicago: Communist Party Election Committee, n.d. [1936]; pg. 8.
- ^ "Jack and Sue Kling papers, 1926-1991 (bulk 1978-1991)," Chicago Historical Society Research Center, www.chsmedia.org/
Works
Articles
- "The Impossibility of an Anarchist Program," The Agitator [Home, WA], vol. 1, no. 15 (June 15, 1911).
Books published
- John Altgeld, The Cost of Something for Nothing. Chicago: Hammersmark Publishing Co., 1904.
- Ernest Howard Crosby, Tolstoy as a Schoolmaster. Chicago: Hammersmark Publishing Co., 1904.
- Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil. Chicago: Hammersmark Publishing Co., 1904.
- Edgar Lee Masters, The New Star Chamber, and Other Essays. Chicago: Hammersmark Publishing Co., 1904.
- Charles Edward Russell, The Twin Immortalities And Other Poems. Chicago: Hammersmark Publishing Co., 1904.
- Leo Tolstoy, Bethink Yourselves: Tolstoy's Letter on the War between Russia and Japan. Chicago: Hammersmark Publishing Co., 1904.
External links
- "Samuel T. Hammersmark," Haymarket Cemetery Tour, Illinois Labor History Society, www.illinoislaborhistory.org/